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Streetchildren are to be found everywhere in India and it is a growing problem. According to the UNDP (United Nations Development Program), India has the highest rate of street children in the world. At least 18 million children live and/or work in the streets. And even that estimate is probably far from reality...

Where ever you are in India, you find street children everywhere...they sweep the floor in the trains, sell food on the streets, repare and shine shoes, they help in cycle- or auto-repair shops, they work in tea-stalls or they are rag picking for a living and bag and steal to stay alife.

Most of the street children are boys. Because life on the street is very hard and demanding, girls don't dare to walk away from home. As soon as they walk away from home, they are subject to prostitution or are otherways sexually misused.
Also streetboys are being neglected or misused by most people. Employers try to give the child as many (odd) chores as possible, for as low as possible a salary, whereas the work circumstances are mostly terrible and the children are very often beat. Those children most often have no one who takes them in protection. Also the police sees the children as "handfull" and often beats them or puts them behind bars, without a valid reason.

The most important reasons for children to live on the streets lies in the poor circumstances in which people have to live; a great part of the indian population is analfabetic, unemployment is high and the work that the poor people can find mostly is heavy and boring work which payes very badly. Also there are only bad or no social welfare services to lighten their suffering. The high degree of urbanisation and the enormous population growth leads to even more poverty and the rising of slum aereas, where big families live in 1-room huts, where hygene is bad, where there is no clean drinking water or electricity and where the children are exposed to the bad habits of their by despare driven parents like alcohol misuse or physical misuse.

Most street children still have contact with their parents, often go home in the evening and work to add to the family income. Children that realy run away from home and have definately broken the contact with their family (like the children that find shelter with Navajeevan) do this because they were physically misused, because no one took care of them or symply because they lost their parents. Once on the street they often seek each others company and try as good as possible to survive.

In many researches is found that street children think life on the street is better than the circumstances at home. They enjoy their freedom on the street, more possibilities to play and often more to eat and less stress. However, life on the street has a negative impact on their health. Very often those children have physical health problems like typhoid, dysentery, scabies, cuts or other wounds that they got during fights or accidents, also sustained during work. Many children suffer of malnutrition in general and more specifically lack an adequate diet (proteines, vitamines, iron and other important nutrients) with all consequences as to that...

Next to the health problems mentioned before, many children suffer from problems due to their "lifestyle'; problems that arise by getting involved with prostitution, as prostitute (also boys prostitute themselves) or as customer, where there is a high risk of venerial disease and/or AIDS. Mainly urged by their friends, children get involved in using drugs, alcohol and/or tobacco.

Besides physical health problems, many children suffer from psychological implications that arise with emotional shortcomings like a lack of (parental)love, lonelyness and insecurity, the lack of a roll model and emotional security. Usually they have a low self-respect and self-confidence, are suspicious and instable. Despite of this, those children have an enormous perseverance!

In Vijayawada there are about 25.000 street children. Because Vijayawada is an important rail road junction, it is a place where street children easily arrive. On avarage, every single day about 10 to 12 children arrive on Vijayawada rail road station. That is about 350 children every month! Fortunately most of those children are intercepted by the street presence team of Navajeevan, whereafter is tried as soon as possible to contact their family so those children can be send back to their family. At the end of 2001, 80% of newly arrived children were successfully send home.